The present invention relates generally to improvements in male and female components of a buckle, the improvements more particularly obviating flexuring movements required in the interconnecting of the male and female component from occurring to an extent which causes, over time, a rupture of the plastic construction material of the buckle partaking of the flexuring movements.
A buckle of the nature involved is exemplified by the buckle of U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,549 issued for xe2x80x9cBUCKLE WITH REINFORCING RIDGE AND GROOVExe2x80x9d to Ryoichiro Vehara on Jul. 24, 2201. The operating mode of the xe2x80x2549 buckle and all other known similarly functioning buckles contemplate the use of flexuring plastic construction material to allow traverses in interconnecting structures on male arms or legs in relation to cooperating recesses in the female component to thusly provide the buckling and unbuckling functions, i.e., the seating and unseating of the male and female connectors. While generally useful for the purposes intended, a drawback of these prior art buckles is that the extent of the flexuring transverses is confined within limits that will obviate rupture of the plastic construction material or condition of buckle use that is reasonable, but not if the buckle use is unavoidably excessive or abused by the user. Thus, a flexuring male connection-establishing arm can be strengthened by ribs or the like and thus resist, certainly initially, rupture, but over a duration of time not anticipated, or buckling and unbuckling during this duration of time in a manner also not accounted for in the design of the strength-imparting rib(s), rupture of plastic construction material will render the buckle unusable.
Broadly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a plastic buckle of the nature of the xe2x80x2549 patent overcoming the foregoing and other shortcomings of the prior art.
More particularly, it is an object to restrict the flexuring in the operation of the buckle to a range between a nominal to a maximum extent, the former being only the extent required to unseat the male and female connectors-to provide the unbuckling function, and the latter of an extent that minimizes any rupturing consequence and being the result of an abutment in the path of the flexuring movement and thus not dependent on a time interval or abuse or lack of abuse during use of the buckle, all as will be better understood as the description proceeds.